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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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THE HISTORIC BRSIS 



_ THELXITLE 

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froje^BS^Epigiopal (Jhrafoh. 



13Y 

EDWARD INGLE, A. B., 

AUTHOR OF 

7V/<? English Parish in Ameiica, Parish Institutions of Mary- 
land, The Local Institutions of Virginia, etc. 



PRICE 15 CENTS. 

jUN 16 1887/ 

GEORGE LYCETT, 

Church Book Store, 9 East Lexington Street, 

Baltimore, Md. 

1887. 



,-.■•■■■ 



.v 



The Library 
op Congress 

washington 



Copyrighted, 1887, by Ed-\yard Ingle, 
Baltimore, Md. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



The author of this pamphlet having observed 
that few historic facts were brought forward in 
the debates in the General Convention of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church on the change of 
the title of the Church, wrote a brief account of 
the adoption of the title for The Sun, Balti- 
more, October 28, 1886. He afterwards extended 
the study of the subject, and the result was three 
articles which have recently appeared in The 
Southern Churchman, of Kichmond, Va., and 
which, with some slight changes, are now pre- 
sented in pamphlet form. The object of the 
publication is, avoiding controversy, to set forth 
briefly and clearly all the facts in the history of 
the Church bearing upon its title, and to express 
succinctly what appear to be the logical conclu- 
sions. The author takes this opportunity of 
recognizing the valuable assistance rendered him 
by Miss Margaret H. Whittingham, Librarian of 
the Stinnecke Episcopal Library, Baltimore, Md. 

E. I. 



TABLE OK CONTENTS 



I. Was the Church of England Protestant ?— Causes 
of Reformation — Attitude of Colet — Influence of Germany — 
Protestantism of the Articles — Anti-Roman. Canons — The 
Church in Convocation — The Ordination Oath — Views of 
Cosin — Actions of Ken, Turner and Lloyd — Statements of 
Strype, Sherlock, Chillmgworth, Fuller and Laud — Definition 
of the Church's Position. 

II. The Name in the Colonies. — Characteristics of the 
Settlement of America — General Phraseology Relating to the 
Name of the Church — Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel — Virginia — Maryland — Pennsylvania — New York — 
Trinity Church — Massachusetts and Connecticut — Other 
Colonies. 

III. — The Adoption of the Title. — Efforts to Obtain 
the Episcopate for America — Opposition to the Church in the 
Colonies — The Revolution— Efforts to Reorganize the Church 
—Archbishop Seeker's Use of the Title — The Title Neither 
Novel Nor Irregular— Appeal to the Church of Scotland — 
Character of the Title— Its First Use— The New Brunswick 
and New York Meetings — First General Convention — The 
Name in the Dioceses — Subsequent Conventions — White's 
Views — Bishop Seabury and the New England Clergy — * 
Conclusion. 



WAS THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND PEOTESTANT ? 

In the sixteenth century great nations of 
Europe broke the shackles of ignorance, super- 
stition and formalism in worship with which they 
had been bound during the middle ages, and 
made rapid progress towards the liberty of mod- 
ern civilization, As in all revolutions of society, 
so in that great awakening many persons mistook 
liberty for license, and great excesses were com- 
mitted in the name of reform ; but reform was 
made in spite of opposition from without and of 
strife within the company of reformers. The in- 
fluences in Church and State, which had been 
silently working for generations, came suddenly 
to the surface of society, and as they were attacked 
the stronger they became. The fall of Constan- 
tinople, in 1453, and the consequent impetus 
given to the revival of learning in Western 
Europe, the possibilities for mental and physical 
energies engendered by new world discoveries, 



inspired men to the search for truth in politics 
and religion, in which they were aided by the 
kindred inventions of paper and of printing. 

As the scholastic philosophy yielded to the 
New Learning, and as nations were born in the 
decline of the empire, there was a mighty change 
in the religious and ecclesiastical sentiments of 
Western Christendom, which found expression in 
an opposition to the overweening power of the 
Papacy, whose spiritual supremacy had become 
subsidiary to temporal aggrandizement, and when 
the power of the Church of Eome had been suc- 
cessfully defied, men turned their attention to the 
betterment of their spiritual condition, and, 
while some may have grievously erred, the great 
body of Eeformers strove earnestly for a Scrip- 
tural faith. Norway, Sweden, Denmark and 
parts of Germany and of Switzerland were among 
the first people to accept the new condition of 
things produced by the movement which bears the 
historical name Protestant, derived from the 
action of the reforming princes at the second 
Council of Speier in 1529. In the Netherlands 
the germs of Protestantism developed gradually, 



and in France., after a long and bitter struggle, 
during which the nation lost much of its strength, 
the Papacy was triumphant, until, amidst the 
horrors of the Kevolution, even the semblance of 
religion was cast aside. 

In England, where the Church had been in a 
greater or less degree allied to the see of Rome 
since the advent of Augustine to her shores, the 
desire for reform in the Church had existed many 
years before Luther nailed upon the church door 
at Wittenberg his protest against the sale of in- 
dulgences. Notwithstanding her insularity, the 
Church of England had not been free from the 
depravity, which was described by Cardinal Bel- 
larmine as "almost an entire abandonment of 
equity in the ecclesiastical judgments, in morals 
no discipline, in sacred literature no erudition, 
in divine things no reverence, religion was almost 
extinct;^* and, according to Blunt, "the 
minds of men had petrified in certain forms of 
theological language, which had been developed 
partly by ' circumstances ' and partly by vigorous 
thinkers of a preceding age.^f Purgatory had 

* Jennings. Ecclesia Anglicana, p. 134. 

f Blunt. History of the Reformation, etc. Vol. I, p. 10. 



10 

been practically substituted for hell in the 
Church's doctrines, the communion in one kind 
was administered, the holy communion, losing its 
thanksgiving characteristics, came to be consid- 
ered as a sacrifice of propitiation for souls in 
purgatory, and " chantry priests " were employed 
solely in offering masses for the dead. Connected 
with errors in doctrine were gross superstitions, 
the worship of images and relics, Mariolotry, and 
the belief in the efficacy of indulgences. From a 
relaxation of penances, in cases where the offender 
showed contrite sorrow, the practice of granting 
indulgences gradually became a kind of pre-ex- 
emption from the consequences of sin on the part 
of Crusaders who fell in battle, and finally a mere 
license to do evil. The hawking of these in- 
dulgences was ultimately monopolized by the 
Dominicans, and the sight of Tetzel, the Domini- 
can engaged in this traffic, caused Martin Luther 
to share in the indignation which had been felt 
for years. 

But men were not wanting in the Church of 
England to rebuke errors and to seek to purify 
the Church from evil practices, Warham, Arch- 



11 

bishop of York, Grocyn, the instructor of Eras- 
mus, and Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, recognized 
the importance of the New Learning, and with 
the new aid, the Greek language, carried on their 
theological research. Colet fearlessly attacked 
the vices of his age in his address to the clergy 
at St. Paul's in 1511. "Nothing," he said, 
"hath so disfigured the face of the Church as 
hath the fashion of secular and worldly living 
in clerks and priests." He berated the clergy 
for "running after dignities," "carnal concupis- 
cence," " covetousness " and secularity. He 
called on the bishops to free themselves from 
nepotism and simony, "which corruption, which 
infection, which cruel and odious pestilence, so 
creepeth now abroad as the canker evil in the 
minds of priests," and urged them to be more 
careful in ordaining priests.* 

Those early Eeformers were vigorous and bold 
in their attempts to purify the Church, but they 
did not contemplate the separation from Eome, 
which was the keynote of the Eeformation in 
England. It was left for Henry VIII, from base 

*Blunt. Reformation. Vol. I., pp. 10-50, 



12 

motives, it is true, to be the instrument of- freeing 
the Church from the Eoman alliance, and, assert- 
ing more powerfully and more emphatically a right, 
for which there were several precedents, to repu- 
diate that power which had conferred on him 
the title, " Defender of the Faith." It is not the 
purpose of this paper to narrate the history of 
the Eeformation in England, the complications 
of the reign of Henry VIII, due to the inter- 
mingling of religion, politics, ecclesiasticism, 
worldliness, self-seeking and piety, the excesses 
of Edward VFs reign, the martyrdoms of Bloody 
Mary and the Puritan ascendancy in the seven- 
teenth century, but looking back from the open- 
ing years of the eighteenth century, when, with 
an open Bible and Prayer-book, and freed from 
mediaevaiism, the Church was heartily engaged 
at home and abroad in disseminating her doc- 
trines through such mediums as the Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 
and the Society for the Promotion of Christian 
Knowledge. 

No one can reasonably deny that England was 
Protestant after the Spanish Armada had been 



13 

launched against her, after James II, in his 
attempts to Komanize the kingdom, had lost his 
throne, and after the Act of Settlement of 1701, 
whereby the succession to the crown was "limited 
to the Princess Sophia, elec tress of Hanover, and 
the heirs of her body being Protestants ; " and 
if other evidence was wanting, it might be argued 
from the close interconnection of Church and 
State, and from the fact that Churchmen, lay 
and clerical, produced the Protestant legislation, 
that the Church was also Protestant. But this 
fact is based upon other arguments. The Thirty- 
nine Articles, to which every deacon was obliged 
to subscribe on entering the ministry, are concen- 
trated Protestantism. 

Archdeacon Hardwick, an authority on the 
subject, in speaking of the Augsburg Confession, 
says that it "is most intimately connected with 
the progress of the English Reformation, and 
besides the influence it cannot fail to have 
exerted by its rapid circulation in our country it 
contributed directly, in a large degree, to the 
construction of the public formularies of faith 
put forward by the Church of England. The 



14 

Thirteen Articles drawn up, as we shall see, in 
1538, were based almost entirely on the language 
of the great Germanic Confession, while a simi- 
lar expression of respect is no less manifest in 
the Articles of Edward VI, and consequently in 
that series which is binding now upon the con- 
science of the English clergy."* Hardwick not 
only makes such a statement, but devotes some 
pages of his work to discussing it. But it is not 
necessary to connect the Articles with German 
Protestantism to demonstrate that they are pro- 
tests against Eomanism. 

They bear the impress of the conflicts of the 
Church, and the Articles, as finally ratified by 
Church and State in 1571, assert that "the 
Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm 
of England;" "as the Churches of Jerusalem, 
Alexandria and Antioch have erred, so also the 
Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their 
living and manner of ceremonies, but also in 
matters of faith;" " the Romish doctrine concern- 
ing purgatory, pardons, worshipping and adora- 
tion, as well of images as of relics, and also in- 

* Hardwick, History of the Articles of Religion, p, 43, cf. pp. 61-66. 



15 

vocation of the saints, is a fond thing, vainly 
invented and grounded upon no warranty of 
Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of 
God;'' " Holy Scripture containeth all things 
necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not 
read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to 
be required of any man;" "it is a thing plainly 
repugnant to the word of God and the custom of 
the primitive Church to have public prayer in the 
Church or to minister the sacraments in a tongue 
not understanded of the people;" "there are two 
sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the 
gospel — that is to say Baptism and the Supper of 
the Lord ; " "Confirmation, Penance, Orders, 
Matrimony and Extreme Unction (commonly 
called sacraments) are not to be counted for 
sacraments of the gospel, being such as have 
grown partly of the corrupt following of the 
Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the 
Scriptures, but yet have not like nature of sac- 
raments with Baptism and the Lord's Supper, 
for that they have not any visible sign or cere- 
mony ordained of God ;" " transubstantiation (or 
the change of the substance of bread and wine) 



16 

in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by 
Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of 
Scripture, over thro weth the nature of a sacra- 
ment, and hath given'occasion of many supersti- 
tions; " " the sacraments were not ordained of 
Christ to be gazed upon or to be carried about;" 
"the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by 
Christ's ordinance received, carried about, lifted 
up or worshipped;" "the cup of the Lord is not 
to be denied to the lay people;" and "the sac- 
rifices of the masses, in the which it was com- 
monly said that the priests did offer Christ for the 
quick and the dead to have remission of pain or 
guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous 
deceits. "* 

Not only in her Articles, but also by her 
Canons, the Church expressed her Protestantism 
and raised her voice against the abuses which 
had crept in through the Boman influence. 
Canon XL of 1604 calls simony a detestable sin. 
Canon LXXXII of the same year provides for a 
decent table for "the celebration of the holy 
communion." Canon X of 1606 states that a 

* Articles of Religion, II, VI, XIX, XXII, XXIV, XXV, XXVIII, 
XXX, XXXI, XXXVII. 



17 

man errs greatly when he affirms "that the intol- 
erable pride of the Bishop of Rome, for the time 
still being, through the advancement of himself 
by many sleights, stratagems and false miracles 
over the Catholic Church (the temple of God), 
as if he were God himself, doth not argue him 
plainly to be the man of sin mentioned by the 
Apostle." Canon III of 1640 provides "for the 
suppression of the growth of Popery ; " and 
Canon VI of that year ordains an oath to be 
taken by all in orders against the " usurpation 
and supersition of the See of Rome."f To the 
Convocation of prelates and clergy of Canterbury 
in 1689 William III sent a message, through the 
Earl of Nottingham, that he had called together 
the Convocation "out of a pious zeal to do every- 
thing that may tend to the best establishment of 
the Church of England," and that he would 
propose nothing but what should be advantageous 
both to % the Protestant religion in general, and 
particularly of the Church of England. The 
Bishops prepared an address in which they 
thanked the King for his zeal "for the Protestant 

f Cardwell, Synodalia, vol. I, pp. 270-293. 



18 

religion in general and the Church of England 
in particular." The lower house of Convocation, 
in which there were no laymen, objected to 
certain portions of this address, particularly the 
phrase " Protestant religion/' and claimed the 
right to frame an address themselves. But the 
upper house contended for the phrase, against 
which objections had been raised, and their prin- 
cipal reason was that " it was the known desig- 
nation of the common doctrine of the Western 
part of Christendom in opposition to the corrup- 
tions jof the Eomish Church." After some days' 
discussion, an amended address to the King was 
signed by the vrhole Convocation, expressive of 
their deep gratitude for his " zeal for the honor, 
peace, order and establishment of the Church of 
England, whereby, we doubt not, the interest of 
the Protestant religion in all other Protestant 
Churches is dear to us, will be better secured."* 
The opposition to the Papacy was, moreover, 
shown in the oath, dating from 1661, that every 
deacon was obliged to take before ordination, by 

* Card well, Synodalia Vol. II, pp. 695-698; Lathbury, History of 
Convocation, p. 330. 



19 

which he declared " that the King's highness is 
the only supreme governor of this realm,, . . . 
as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or 
causes as temporal." The oath substituted for this 
under William and Mary, obliged the candidate to 
swear "that I do, from my heart, abhor, detest 
and abjure as impious and heretical that damna- 
ble doctrine and position, that princes excom- 
municated or deprived by the Pope, or any 
authority of the See of Eome, may be deposed or 
murdered by their subjects or any other what- 
soever," and "I do declare that no foreign 
prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath, 
or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, supe- 
riority, eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or 
spiritual, within this realm." The latter oath 
was used until 1868, when for it was substituted 
another, repeating the words of the Act of settle- 
ment.* In the coronation office the oath admin- 
istered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which 
oath originated during the reign of William and 
Mary, binds the sovereign, to the utmost of his 
or her power, "to maintain the laws of God, the 

* Blunt, Annotated Book of Common Prayer, p. 549. 



20 

true profession of the gospel and the Protestant 
reformed religion established by law."* The Act 
of Union with Scotland, which was consummated 
in 1707, provides for a " Protestant succession," 
and treats also of the " Protestant religion estab- 
lished by law in the Church of England." 

As Convocation ceased to be a business body 
by 1722, and was not revived until the middle 
of the present century, the Church was rep- 
resented in legislation only through her mem- 
bers in Parliament ; but with the suppression of 
Convocation, which had originally been the tax- 
ing agency, the Church did not lose existence. 
The sentiments of the Church in her collective 
capacity and in her relation to the State having 
been shown, the actions and words of Church- 
men may be adduced as corroborative evidence 
of the Protestantism of the Church. One proof 
of the fact that Churchmen of the most rigid 
schools considered themselves and the Church to 
be Protestant, is the affection shown by them for 
the foreign Reformed Churches. Bishop John 
Cosin, of Durham, who Fuller said was "the 

* Elliott. The State and the Church, p. 22. 



21 

Atlas of the Protestant religion/'* while he was in 
France, wrote as follows: "I never refused to 
join with the Protestants, either here or any- 
where else, in all things wherein they join with 
the Church of England ;" and, referring to the 
Episcopacy : "If upon this ground we renounce 
the French, we must, for the same reason, re- 
nounce all the ministers of Germany besides (for 
the superintendents that make and ordain minis- 
ters there have no new ordination beyond their 
own presbytery at all), and then what will be- 
come of the Protestant party?" In another 
place he called attention to the Church's position 
regarding other Protestant Churches when he 
wrote that "always in my mind and affection I 
join and unite with them ; which I desire to be 
chiefly understood of Protestant and the best 
Reformed Churches ; " and in his will he wrote : 
"As for our brethren, the Protestants of foreign 
Churches Eeformed, the most learned and judi- 
cious of themselves have bewailed their misery 
for want of bishops. But, as for our perverse 
Protestants at home, I cannot say the same of 

*Fuller, Worthies of England. Vol. I, p. 484. 



22 

them, seeing they impiously reject that which the 
other piously desire.* Other Churchmen showed 
by their acts or words that the Church of Eng- 
land made a common cause with Protestant 
Churches of the Continent. When the Edict of 
Nantes was revoked in 1685, the Huguenots of 
France turned naturally to England as a place 
of refuge, and they were welcomed by Church- 
men of all schools. Thomas Ken (1637-1711), 
Bishop of Bath and Wells, who was later one of 
the non-jurors, not only made an appeal on their 
behalf in a sermon before James II, but also 
gave them £4,000 ; a chapel at Thorney Abbey 
was tendered them by Francis Turner (1636- 
1700), Bishop of Ely, and William Lloyd, Bishop 
of St. Asaph, and afterwards of Worcester, also 
helped them financially. The same individuals, 
with Archbishop Bancroft and Archbishop Bram- 
hall, were powerful upholders of the Church of 
England in her relation to Eomanists, which " was 
from first to last, and from the highest of High 
Churchmen to the most latitudinarian of low, one 
of deep, uncompromising hostility. "\ 

♦Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology. Cosin's Works, Vol. I, p. 32, 
Vol. IV, pp. 3Q7, 483. 
tOverton, Life in the English Church(i66o-i7i4), pp. 349-352. 



23 

But Churchmen of widely differing schools 
called the religion of the Church of England, or 
the Church itself, Protestant. Eev. John Strype, 
in dedicating to Archbishop Tillotson his "Me- 
morial of Archbishop Cranmer," wrote : " For it 
is true what the Eomanists say in obloquy, but 
we Protestants say it to his eternal fame, that he 
was the first of all the Archbishops of Canter- 
bury that made a defection from the Papal 
chair. "* And when narrating the troublous 
times of the sixteenth century, he wrote: "As 
for the Protestants, some were put in prison, 
some escaped beyond sea, some went to mass, and 
some recanted, and many were burned and ended 
their lives in the flames for religion' s sake/ They 
that were in prison, whereof Cranmer was the 
chief, etc.^f Bishop William Sherlock wrote in 
1687 a short work, entitled "A Short Summary 
of the Principal Controversies Between the 
Church of England and the Church of Eome, 
Being a Vindication of Several Protestant Doc- 
trines," and in 1688 one called "A Preservative 

*Strype. Memorial of Archbishop Cranmer. Dedicatory Epistle. 
tStrype. Memorial &c. Vol. Ill, p. 147. 



24 

Against Popery, Being Some Plain Directions to 
Unlearned Protestants How to Dispute with 
Komish Priests." William Chilling worth, one 
of the greatest logicians and controversialists of 
the Church of England, in his " Religion of Prot- 
estants a Safe Way to Salvation," published in 
1687, referred to "the Protestant Church of 
England," and asked the Romanist, in language 
based upon the position of the Church of 
England : " What confessions of Protestants have 
you for the antiquity of the doctrine of the com- 
munion in one kind, the lawfulness and expedi- 
ency of the Latin service ; for the present use of 
indulgences ; for the Pope's power in tempor- 
alities over princes ; for the pictures of the Trin- 
ity ; for the lawfulness of the worship of pictures ; 
for your beads and rosary and Ladies' Psalter ; 
and, in a word, for your whole worship of the 
Blessed Virgin ; for your oblations by way of 
consumption, and therefore in the quality of sac- 
rifices to the Virgin Mary and other saints ; . . 
for infallibility of the Bishop of the Church of 
Rome ; for your prohibiting the Scripture to be 



25 

read publicly in the Church in such language as 
all may understand/' etc.* 

Fuller, referring to the clergymen whose lives 
he recorded, characterized them as "holding 
their places not from the Pope, but their prince, 
and practising the principles of the Protestant 
religion for the term of a hundred and twenty 
years, since the latter end of the reign of King 
Henry the Eighth, * * the main champions 
of truth against error^learning against ignorance, 
piety against profanation, religion against super- 
stition, unity and order against faction and con- 
fusion." f 

Archbishop Laud, who stood forth during 
Charles the First's reign as the champion of the 
Church of England against Popery and Puritan- 
ism, having ably defended himself against his 
enemies during his eight months' trial, but who 
was executed January 10, 1645, on Tower Hill, 
said, in his address on the scaffold : " I hold him 
(the king) to be as sound a Protestant (according 
to the religion by law established) as any man 

*Chillingworth. Religion of Protestants, pp. 49, 312. 
f Fuller's Worthies. Vol. I, p. 21. 



26 

in this kingdom, . . . and I think I do oV 
should know both his affection to religion aiid his 
grounds for it as any man in England/' and "1 
was born and baptized in the bosom of the Church 
of England established by law ; in that profession 
I have ever since lived, and in that I come now 
to die. This is no time to dissemble with God, 
least of all in matters of religion, and therefore 
I desire it may be remembered, I have alw T ays 
lived in the Protestant religion established by law 
in England, and in that I come to die."* 

It is unnecessary to quote other Church writers 
in this connection, for from the preceding ex- 
tracts it can be seen that the English king, and 
the English State in Parliament assembled, re- 
garded the religion of the Church of England as 
Protestant, which opinion w r as shared by the 
Church in Convocation; Churchmen called them- 
selves and their fellow members of the Church 
Protestant, and considered their Church to be 
one of the bulwarks against Komanism in a doc- 
trinal sense as their country had been since the 
days of Elizabeth against the political power of 

* Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, Laud's Works, p. 433. 



27 

Kome. Their struggles with ultra-Protestantism 
after the reign of Edward VI are sufficient evi- 
dence of their firm belief in the Episcopal char- 
acter of their Church and of their purpose to 
improve it, and it is not necessary to quote in 
their defence from Bancroft, Saravia, Bramhall, 
Bingham, Cosin, and other champions of Episco- 
pacy. Jennings says that, during the reign of 
James I, the Church of England had "informally 
adopted the title Protestant," giving it the sense 
of Keformed Catholic. This appropriation of the 
term is sanctioned, even by such Anglicans as 
Andrewes, Ken and Laud." * 

Another century did not change this appella- 
tion, and when the Church enlarged her borders 
by extending her care to the English colonies in 
America she remained Catholic in holding fast 
to the primitive faith of the Church universal,, 
Episcopal in abiding strictly by the Apostolic 
order in her ministry, and Protestant in opposi- 
tion to Papal presumption and Koman error. 

* Ecclesia Anglicana, p. 342, 



II. 

THE NAME IN THE COLONIES. 

The settlement of America by Englishmen 
presents several curious anomalies, when viewed 
from an ecclesiastical standpoint, and demon- 
strates the great influence of politics upon the 
sovereign's policy in Church affairs, resulting 
from the close connection of Church and State. 
Charles I, a staunch Anglican, whose reign was 
marked by the struggle of the Church against 
Eomanism and an active Puritanism, granted 
away a large portion of Virginia, the outpost of 
the Church in America, to the Eomanist, Lord 
Baltimore ; Charles II, who was himself a 
Eomanist at heart, was induced by his Papist 
brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II, 
to grant Pennsylvania to William Penn, at a 
time when England was suffering the effects of 
the reaction against Puritanism. Distance ena- 
bled those New Englanders who had professed 
great love "for the Church of England, from 



29 

whence we arise, our dear mother/' to forget 
that Church as well as the terms of the charters, 
in the cases of charter settlements ; and the early 
charters and constitutions of Carolina were as 
contradictory and as heterogeneous as was the 
scant population before 1690. 

The Eev. Hugh Jones, of Virginia, character- 
ized the ecclesiastical condition of the Colonies in 
the early years of the eighteenth century in the 
following vigorous though hyperbolical sentence, 
viz : ^If Neiv England be called a receptacle of 
dissenters and an Amsterdam of Eeligion, Penn- 
sylvania the nursery of the Quakers, Maryland 
the retirement of Roman Catholics, North Carolina 
the refuge of runaways, and South Carolina the 
delight of buccaneers and pirates, Virginia may 
be justly esteemed the happy retreat of true Bri- 
tons and true Churchmen for the most part.* He 
wrote at a time when the Church of England in 
America was represented chiefly by her members 
in Virginia and Maryland, but when also the 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 
Foreign Parts was actively engaged in sending 

* Jones. Present State of Virginia p. 48. 



30 

forth its missionaries, strengthening the Church 
of England in colonies where there was an estab- 
lishment, and planting the Church in other colo- 
nies. That society, established in 1701, and in- 
cluding among its incorporators the Archbishops 
of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London, 
Worcester, Ely, Eochester, Gloucester, Chichester, 
Bath and Wells, Chester and Bangor, and prom- 
inent clergymen, noblemen, merchants and pro- 
fessional men, was to supply "the want of learned 
and orthodox ministers to instruct others of his 
(majesty's) subjects in the principles of true relig- 
ion," whereby "divers Eomish priests and Jesuits 
were the more encouraged to pervert and draw 
them over to Popish superstition and idolatry." 
It is not surprising, therefore, to read in an 
account of the work of the society, published in 
1704, such a phrase as "the French and Papist 
interest, against that of England and the Keform- 
ed religion •" that in New York "the Protestant 
religion is settled here by act of Assembly, as es- 
tablished in England," and that in Philadelphia 
there "is an Episcopal Church,"* or to learn 

* Anderson. Colonial church, Vol. II, pp. 751, 766. 



31 

that the society's missionaries called themselves 
Protestants, Episcopalians and Protestant Epis- 
copalians. The use of these terms varied accord- 
ing to the circumstances of the clergy, and while, 
generally speaking, the word Episcopal was em- 
ployed to define the clergy's position in relation to 
ultra Protestantism, and the word Protestant to 
express their opposition to the Church of Rome, a 
study of the ecclesiastical records of single colonies 
may demonstrate the fact more clearly. 

The Colonial Congress which met at Albany, 
in 1754, to devise measures to prevent further 
encroachments of the French, agreed to limit the 
colonies " by the Allegheny or Apalachian moun- 
tains, and that measures be taken for settling 
from time to time colonies of his Majesty's 
Protestant subjects westward of said moun- 
tains."* It was during the French and Indian 
wars that the Protestantism of the Anglo-Ameri- 
cans was first strongly asserted, and members of 
the Church of England regarded that Church in 
America as participating in that Protestantism. 
Thus the Eev. Geo. Keith wrote, in 1703, that the 

* New York Hist. Col. Vol. VI, p. 888. 



32 

Quakers in America liad advanced their cause 
" by their grossly misrepresenting the doctrine of 
the Church of England and of all other Protestant 
Churches/' and Seeker/ Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, referring to the attacks made by dissenters 
against the society, wrote that they alleged "that 
we have unwarrantably changed our object from 
the propagation of Christianity and Protestant- 
ism to the propagation of one form of it in 
opposition to other Protestants." At the* same 
time Archbishop Seeker stated that the intention 
of sending a bishop to America was not to exer- 
cise jurisdiction over dissenters, but "merely to 
ordain ministers for Episcopal congregations."* 
He also wrote of the "Episcopal clergy" in 
America in 17G1 ; Bishop Sherlock used the 
phrase "the Episcopal Church in America," and 
those colonies where the Church of England had 
gained a foothold were called "Episcopal colo- 
nies."! In Virginia, where the Church of 
England may be said to have been established 
from the time when Hunt ministered unto the 

* Coll. Prot. Epis. Hist. Soc, 1851, p. 20; New York Hist. Coll., Vol. 
VII, pp. 347-348. 
t M. Y. Hist. Coll., Vol. VII, pp. 364, 454; Prot. Epis. Hist. Soc, p. 159. 



33 

first settlers, few occasions arose which required 
the Church to express particularly either her 
Episcopacy or her Protestantism. But Governor 
Berkeley was instructed by his King as follows : 
" We oblige you in your own house and family 
to the profession of the Protestant religion 
according as it is now established in our own 
kingdom of England."* Provision was made 
for services for the Protestant Germans on the 
Eappahannock river and for the French Protest- 
ants at Manican town ; Governor Spotswood 
wrote in 1714: "I intend to appoint a day of 
general thanksgiving and rejoicing for the bless- 
ing we enjoy of a Protestant successor in the 
person of our present sovereign, King George. "\ 
The clergy of Virginia, with the Kev. Commissary 
Dawson, addressing the King on the subject of 
the French and Indian war, wrote that they had 
endeavored to impress upon the people their 
danger "from the unjustifiable encroachments of 
a Popish and arbitrary power, and also to animate 
them by all forcible means to a lively defence of 

* Neill. Virginia Carolorum, p. 293. 
t Spotswood Letters. Vol. II, p. 75. 



34 

those invaluable rights and privileges, which are 
confirmed to them by the Protestant succession;" 
and the Bishop of London wrote in 1775, when 
Davies was preaching Presbyterianism in Vir- 
ginia, that it was ''a country entire Episcopal."* 

Nowhere else in America was the Church of 
England more positively held to be Protestant 
than in Maryland. The demesne of a Romanist, 
and founded with the celebration of mass by a 
Jesuit, the province, through the humanity and 
enlightened policy of the lord proprietor, was the 
home of individuals differing widely among each 
other in matters of religion. 

Members of the Church of England were in the 
province probably from the time of its settlement, 
and soon claimed their rights. In 1638 action 
was taken against William Lewis, against whom 
" a paper had been drawn up by his servants 
(Protestants) that he had interfered with their 
reading Mr. Smith's sermon." The secretary, 
John Lewger, found that he had exceeded his 
powers in forbidding his servants "to read a book 
otherwise allowed and lawful to be read by the 

Documents relating to Colonial Church History, Va., pp. 371, 419. 



35 

State of England/' and Lewis gave security for 
good behavior, and promised not to "use any 
ignominious words or speeches touching the 
books or ministers authorized by the State of 
England."* The "Protestant Catholicks" of 
Maryland petitioned the Assembly in March, 
1642, against Thomas Gerard for having taken 
their chapel key and books, and he being found 
guilty was fined 500 pounds of tobacco, to be 
used " towards the maintenance of the first 
minister as should arrive. "f By the will of 
Robert Cager, in 1675, his real and personal 
estate was left to the inhabitants of St. George's 
and Poplar Hundred, St. Mary's county, "for 
the maintenance of a Protestant ministry."! 
These statements in themselves seem to refer to 
the- Church of England, and they are likewise 
supported by the remarks of Alsop in 1666, that 
in Maryland "the Roman Catholick and the 
Protestant Episcopal" lived in harmony. § The 
religious dissensions in England during the reign 

* Streeter Papers, p. 212. 

tMd. Assembly Proceedings, (1638-54,) p. 119. 

X Ibid, (1660-76,) p. 530. 

§Akop. Character of the Province of Maryland, p. 45. 



36 

of Charles II had their counterpart in Maryland, 
and more than once attempts were made to have 
the province taken from the hands of the Koman- 
ist proprietor. While Charles (Lord Baltimore) 
was in England answering complaints made 
against him, the Kev. John Yeo wrote, in 1676, 
to Archbishop Sheldon a letter, in which he 
stated that in Maryland there " are but three 
Protestant ministers of us yt are conformable to 
ye doctrine and discipline of ye Church of Eng- 
land/' "noe care is taken, or provision made, 
for the building up Christians in the Protest- 
ant religion, by means whereof many dayly fall 
away either to Popery, Quakerism, or Phanati- 
cism," and asked that "a maintenance for a 
Protestant ministry may be established."* 

The agitation against the Baltimores was con- 
tinued until, in 1689, occurred the Protestant 
revolution, which, corresponding to the English 
revolution, which placed William and Mary on the 
throne, wrested the power from Lord Baltimore's 
representatives and the government was seized by 
associates, "for the defense of the Protestant 

* Quoted in Anderson's Col. Church, Vol. II, pp. 611-613. 



37 

religion." The results of the revolution were 
that Maryland became a royal province, the 
charter having been forfeited, and the Church of 
England was established by law in an act of 1692 
"for the service of Almighty God and the estab- 
lishment of the Protestant religion." This act 
and an additional one with the same title were 
repealed by another act of 1696, which was not 
approved by William III because a clause declar- 
ing "all the laws of England to be in force" 
within the province was not embraced in the title, 
and it was not until 1702 that the establishment 
was completed in "an act for the establishment 
of religious worship in this province according to 
the Church of England."* The oaths taken by 
vestryman under the establishment were based 
upon the struggle of the Church of England 
with Rome. The test oath subscribed to by 
every church officer was : "We, the subscribers, 
do declare that we do believe that there is not 
any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper or in the elements of bread or wine 
at or after the consecration thereof by any person 

* Bacon. Laws of Maryland, 1692, 1695, 1700, 1702. 



38 

or persons whatsoever/' and the oath of allegiance 
and abjuration declared the independence of the 
crown of England of any foreign power and the 
falseness of the doctrine ''that princes excommu- 
nicated or deprived by the Pope or any authority 
of the see of Home may be deposed or murthered 
by their subjects." This oath was the same as 
that taken by deacons, as was also the oath insti- 
tuted after the accession of George I relating to 
the Protestant succession.* 

The clergy, with their ordination oath before 
them, and members of successive vestries, who 
took the usual oaths, could not forget the Protest- 
ant character of the Church of England, and 
phrases to be found scattered among the archives 
prove that they did not. The clergy of Maryland 
were called "Episcopal clergymen." In a letter 
on "the present state of the Protestant religion 
in Maryland" (1699-1700) reference is made to 
"a perpetual succession of Protestant divines of 
the Church of England ;" in 1698 complaint was 
made that the Eomanists had withdrawn persons 

♦Bacon. Laws of Md. 1702, 1715. Ingle. Parish Institutions of Mary- 
land, p 13. 



39 

from "the Protestant religion by law established/' 
and that the Assembly desired "to have ye Prot- 
estant religion according to the Church of Eng- 
land established." The Key. Christopher Wil- 
kinson is the authority for the statement, in 1718, 
that the Governor was a friend of "our church 
and the Protestant religion." The Key. Com- 
missary Jacob Henderson wrote in 1724 of the 
"Protestant clergy" and the "clergy and Prot- 
estant laity here," and four years previously had 
said to the clergy : "I pray God nothing but the 
true interest of the Protestant religion as establish- 
ed here ;" and after the restoration of the province 
to the proprietor (1715), upon his becoming a 
member of the Church of England, the clergy 
were told by Lord Baltimore that "the Protestant 
religion is the basis and foundation of our happy 
constitution."* 

The question of the justness of an establishment 
in Maryland will not be discussed in this paper, 
but it may be said that among its chief opponents 
were the Quakers, who nearly two centuries ago 

♦Documents relating to Col. Church Hist. Md. pp. 8,24, 33, 35, 108 , 
118, 282, 301. Coll. Prot, Epis. Hxst. Soc. pp. 92, 102. 



40 

contended for a principle, which lias not yet been 
successfully asserted in England. 

The equitable character of Penn^s policy, second 
only to that of the Lords Baltimore, and the tol- 
erance in religious affairs shown towards the set- 
tlers of Pennsylvania, induced men of many per- 
suasions to attach themselves to the colony. In 
the charter was a clause permitting a clergyman 
of the Church of England to live undisturbed in 
the province, whenever twenty inhabitants desired 
his ministrations, and under that provision the 
Eev. Mr. Clayton became, in 1695, the first 
rector of a church in Philadelphia. Though for 
a time the Church of England was represented in 
the colony only by a few members in Philadelphia 
and its vicinity, the zealous missionaries of the 
Society gradually gathered congregations in the 
parts of the country at some distance from the 
capital, and in spite of the accusations brought 
against Penn of Jesuitism, and the general belief 
that the Quakers were leagued in England with 
the Eomanists, the Church of England in Penn- 
sylvania was but little hampered in her growth ' 
by Quaker influence. 



41 

But her position among ultra Protestant Church 
bodies required at times the use of the name 
Episcopal,, and the events of the French and Indian 
war brought out expressions of her Protestantism. 
In 1718, the church wardens of Trinity church, 
Oxford, expressed their "entire love and a great 
regard for the prosperity of the Protestant religion 
of the Church of England ;" the missionaries 
were called "Episcopal ministers" in 1728, and 
in 1741 the members of "the Episcopal Church at 
Chester" spoke of their past enjoyment of "the 
benefit of a Protestant teacher" in their school, 
and considered Charles Fortescue, who had offered 
himself for that position, "a zealous Protestant 
of the Church of England."* 

During the war, which brought devastation upon 
American pioneers, the Rev. William Smith wrote, 
in 1756, to England with reference to the subject 
of missionaries on the frontiers : "The more I 
consider it the more I see its importance to the 
Protestant interests. If the people of the fron- 
tiers were duly sensible of our inestimable privile- 
ges, and animated with the true spirit of Protest- 

*Documents relating to Col. Church Hist. Pa., pp. 115, 163, 185, 219. 



42 

antism, they would be as a wall of brass around 
these Colonies/' and that "our Popish enemies, 
the French, have lately planted a few colonies of 
Germans and other Catholics on the Ohio/' He 
hoped, nevertheless, "to succeed in making our 
Germans speak English and become good Prot- 
estants."* Of the same mind was theEev. Thomas 
Barton, who in 1756 had been enabled "to do 
some service to our pure Protestant religion/' and 
who was rejoiced to see his "people crowding with 
their muskets on the shoulders, declaring they 
will dye Protestants and freedmen sooner than 
live idolaters and slaves." Notwithstanding his 
belief that "the French King has rather served 
than injured the Protestant cause in these parts," 
the Eev. Mr. Barton served his King as chaplain 
of the troops under General Forbes in 1756, dis- 
charging what the General called his "ministerial 
and Episcopal duty to the troops of the Episcopal 
persuasion," and the members of the "Episcopal 
churches" in York and Cumberland counties re- 
gretted his absence. 

*N. Y. Hist. Coll. Vol. VII. p. 165. 



43 

To a communication from "the Episcopal clergy 
of the province" in 1760,, Governor Hamilton re- 
plied that he would do everything that might 
"tend to the advantage of the Protestant religion 
and of the Church of England." Eev. P. Bead- 
ing thought that the great importance of the 
mission at Apoquinimunck "to the society, and 
indeed to every sincere lover of the Protestant 
cause, is its lying contiguous to a very consider- 
able Popish seminary" in Maryland. The clergy 
of Pennsylvania framed in 1760 an address to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury upon his elevation, 
which they believed was an example of "the provi- 
dence of God in behalf of the Protestant cause." 
The Bev. Hugh Neill made mention in 1763 of 
the "Episcopal clergy" of Philadelphia, and the 
congregation at Beading was called "Episcopal" 
by its church wardens and vestrymen.* 

The state of the Church of England in New 
York was somewhat similar to that in Pennsyl- 
vania, although in the former province there were- 
not as many Quakers, and provision was made by 

*Doc. Col. Ch. Hist. Pa. pp. 272, 274, 283, 284, 285, 295, 297, 313. 317,, 
354, 384, 454- 



44 

the government for the support of Church of Eng- 
land ministers. The cosmopolitan character of the 
settlements, however, tended towards religious 
tolerance, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries congregations of the Dutch and French 
Churches were successfully gathered. Being one 
of the border colonies between other English set- 
tlements and New France, New York could not 
but be one of the strongholds of Protestantism, 
and the friendship of the powerful Five Nations, 
whose influence extended from the St. Lawrence 
to the Ohio, was eagerly sought by the English 
against England' s rival in North America. 

The French Jesuits, with missionary zeal most 
commendable, were the pioneers of French dis- 
coveries along the great lakes and the Mississippi, 
and they labored fearlessly in the wilderness to 
convert the Indians to their faith. To counter- 
act this influence, the Five Nations and the Eng- 
lish were united in efforts to obtain Church of 
England missionaries for the Indians. The Mo- 
hawks represented to Governor Slaughter in 1691 
that they had "partaken of that benefit to be in- 
structed in the religion of the great King of Eng- 



45 

land,, that is, the Protestant religion/' and the' 
Governor, in reply, called attention to the differ- 
ence between the "Keformed religion and that of 
the Romans/' and encouraged the Indians to hope 
for support from "our great Protestant King." 
The agents of New York besought in 1696 the 
commissioners of plantations "that some English 
clergy may be encouraged to dwell for some time 
amongst those people (the Indians) to endeavour 
their conversion to the Protestant religion/' and 
the Earl of Bellamont, who had been instructed 
by William III "to allow liberty of conscience to- 
all persons except Papists/' told the Count of 
Frontenac, in Canada, that the Indians were op- 
posed to the Jesuits, and wished "to have some 
of our Protestant ministers among them." The 
commissioners of New York told the Indians in 
1700 that the Governor "expects orders to settle 
some Protestant ministers among you," and Gov. 
Bellamont informed them that "when you are 
acquainted with our religion, that is, the Prot- 
estant religion, you will find it grounded on 
principles of truth and righteousness, and not on 



46 

lying artifices, which the Jesuits teach and prac- 
tice." Rev. Samuel Johnson, of King's College, 
classed himself with the "Episcopalians." The 
funds by which Trinity Church, New York, was 
placed on a sure foundation were granted by the 
King "to the rector and inhabitants of our said 
•city of New York in communion of our Protest- 
ant Church of England, as now established by 
our laws/'' "for the use of those, who might from 
time to time be inhabitants of the city of New 
York, in communion with the said Protestant 
Church of England, as established by law." Fre- 
quent use of similar language was made in the 
minutes of the vestry, the language was repeated 
in a Latin incription over the door of the church, 
and the church wardens and vestrymen of Trinity 
church petitioned, in 1698, Archbishop Tenison 
as follows : "We humbly lay this matter to your 
gracious consideration, earnestly beseeching your 
Grace, as we are part of that Church and nation 
over which God in a most eminent station has 
placed you, we may be safe under your protection, 
and that this hopeful foundation of an English 



47 

Protestant Church in these parts of the world 
may receive no mischief/'* 

While in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and 
New York, the Protestantism of the Church was 
thus announced, her Episcopal character was 
equally emphasized in New England. There in 
early days the fasts and festivals of the Church 
were under a ban. The observance of Christmas 
day particularly offensive. People were led to 
regard her as Romish, and, hence, she being the 
dissenting Church had to struggle for very exis- 
tence. Surrounded by Independency though she 
was, the Church ultimately thrived, but by her 
Episcopal claims stood opposed to sectarian organ- 
ization. In the early records one reads of "Epis- 
copal churches/' a petition of "the Episcopal min- 
isters in this province/' of the "Episcopal clergy" 
excluded from Harvard, and of the "Episcopal 
church" in Boston. Governor Belcher stated in 
1731 that "the Episcopal clergy think the Church 
of England the best Church in the world ; " in a 

* N. Y. Hist. Coll. Vol. Ill, p. 771; Vol. IV, pp. 254, 288, 368, 527, 
€56,727; Vol. VII., p. 498. Berrian. "The Rector Rectified,' p. 1;. 
Berrian. History of Trinity Church, pp. 22, 24. 



48 

petition from citizens of Newbury allusion was 
made to "the Episcopal Church of England.'' 
Rev. Timothy Cutler wrote in 1728 that "the 
Episcopal Church has very sensibly increased 
here." Kev. Eoger Price in 1731 styLed himself 
"commissary of the Episcopal Church in New 
England/' and C. J. Lawton deeded in 1743 a 
farm for the support of "the Episcopal Church 
of England." In Connecticut were "Episco- 
palians/' an "Episcopal congregation at Fair- 
field/' "Episcopal parishioners/' and many 
instances occur of the use of the word Episcopal, 
as where mention is made of the "Episcopal 
Church in that colony" and of "his Majesty's 
subjects of the Episcopal Church in America.* 

In spite of the fact that New England was the 
home pre-eminently of ultra Protestantism, the 
Church of England clergy found occasion to 
declare her Protestantism. Smarting under oppo- 
sition, one claimed that the Church of England 
was included in the charter of William and 
Mary, whereby "all Protestants are entitled to 

* Doc. Col. Ch. Hist. Mass., pp. 107, 171, 174, 210, 264, 270, 272, 366, 
375. Church Documents, Conn., Vol I, pp. 72, 101, 171, 228, 267 ; Vol. II, 
pp. 78, 91, 107. 



49 

* * * an universal freedom and liberty of 
conscience;" and Key. Timothy Cutler, with 
reference to the same charter, complained of 
the New Englanders for "depriving us of that 
equal liberty which is thereby allowed to Protest- 
ants of all denominations." Eev. Stephen Eoe, 
describing, in 1742, a visit he had made to the 
northeastern part of Massachusetts, wrote: "I 
found many families of his Majesty's subjects, 
chiefly Irish Protestants, scattered there who were 
baptized and bred in our Church's doctrine and 
worship," and he ascribed to the residence of 
Eoman missionaries among the Indians "the 
success of Popery above the Protestant religion." 
To allay the fears of Independents, it was stated 
that in New England "the Church of England 
desires that all its fellow-Protestants may enjoy 
the full exercise of their religion." The Eev. 
Mr. Dibblie, of Stamford, Conn., said 1765: "I 
endeavor, both in public and private, to incul- 
cate the great duty of obedience and subjection 
to the government in being, and steadfast adher- 
ence to that well-tempered frame of polity upon 
which this Protestant Church of ours is built." 



50 

And the clergy of Connecticut and New York 
united in 1766 in a petition to the Bishop of 
London "to procure a worthy Protestant Bishop 
or two in some of these colonies,, especially since 
the Eoman Catholics are so happy as to be 
indulged with a Popish one."* 

In the Carolinas, where liberty of conscience 
was assured to all persons save Papists, and where 
there was an establishment, there were few occa- 
sions for the Church of England to use any other 
name, though church officers were required to 
take the usual oaths. The situation in Delaware 
was like that in Pennsylvania,, and that in New 
Jersey like that in New York. In New Jersey, 
however, the Kev. John Talbot, who was accused 
of having obtained consecration to the Episcopal 
office from the Scottish non-jurors, wrote: "I 
know no soul in the church of Burlington, nor 
in any other church I have planted, but is well 
affected to the Protestant Church of England. "f 

But enough has been quoted to show the 
Protestantism of the Church of England in the 

* Doc. Col. Ch. Hist. Mass., pp. 276, 282, 316, 365 ; Prot. Epis. Hist. 
Soc., p. 159. Church Doc. Conn., Vol. II, pp. 84, 101. 
t Perry. Amer. Epis. Ch. Vol. I, p. 549. 



51 

Anglo-American colonies. The attempts of the 
members of that communion to strengthen her 
Episcopacy by having bishops resident in America 
demonstrated that the Church of England here 
was regarded both as Protestant and as Episcopal. 



III. 

THE ADOPTION OF THE TITLE. 

The desire to have a bishop of the Church of 
England in America existed almost from the time 
of the settlement of this country. Many efforts, 
all equally futile, were made during the latter 
half of the seventeenth century and the first half 
of the eighteenth to satisfy this longing, and the 
twenty years preceding the American Kevolution 
were marked by vigorous attempts to obtain a 
bishop on the part of the members of the Church 
of England in this country and in England, which 
were thwarted by a determined opposition on both 
sides of the Atlantic. The Bishop of London 
had, ex officio, the general oversight of the Church 
in the Colonies ; but the distance from America 
was too great for him to do more than ordain a 
few candidates for the ministry, who braved two 
ocean trips, at a great expense, to receive ordina- 
tion. 



53 

A kind of compromise was attempted in the 
appointment of commissaries, but they could ex- 
ercise no episcopal functions, save that of super- 
vision of the clergy, and their presence in the 
colonies did not put an end to the agitation for a 
suffragan bishop, but rather increased its strength. 
Those persons who favored the plan, as Episco- 
palians, thought it but just and right that they 
should not be separated from episcopacy by the 
ocean. The rite of confirmation was not admin- 
istered, and those men in America who desired 
to be admitted to orders could obtain them only 
in England. It was contended that an American 
episcopate could but strengthen the ties between 
the mother country and her colonies, and that the 
clergy would be spurred on to more united and 
energetic work by the presence of their ecclesias- 
tical superiors. The opponents of the design, 
among whom were laymen of the Church, thought 
that it would introduce into America complica- 
tions in politics, due to the closer union of State 
and Church. Those colonies which had been 
wholly or partly settled by men opposed to the 
English Church expected a forced return to their 



54 

former condition, and some persons claimed that 
the episcopate haying been obtained the colonial 
dependence would thereby be weakened. As the 
discussion was strongest at the time when the 
English government was attempting the oppressive 
measures which culminated in the Eevolution of 
1776, the feeling against the Church became more 
and more pronounced, not only in those colonies 
where she had been established, but also where 
she was considered a dissenting body, and this 
feeling was one of the many causes that produced 
American independence. 

When the Kevolutionary war began, many of 
the clergy, who felt bound by their oaths, re- 
turned to England. Some, after vain endeavors 
to oppose the changes, resigned themselves to the 
force of superior circumstances and passively 
awaited the issue of the struggle, and others 
boldly upheld the cause of the colonies. The 
war greatly weakened the Church, particularly in 
those colonies — such as Virginia and Maryland — 
where she had previously been strongest. Dis- 
establishment, the withdrawal of support, moral 
and temporal, and the general carelessness result- 



55 

Ing from a long war impaired her usefulness ; but 
when peace had been concluded, and even before 
that event, her members sought to repair her for- 
tunes and to place her on a firm and enduring 
foundation ; and though some opposition was still 
shown against her, the results of the war had re- 
moved most of the causes for apprehension that the 
mere mention of episcopacy had once produced, 
and the Church was aided by civil authorities in 
obtaining the episcopal succession from England. 
The war had not changed her character. She 
was regarded as the legal successor, or rather sur- 
vivor, of the Church of England by her members 
and by the State of Maryland and elsewhere. 
But, while individuals in the United States and 
in England spoke of her as "the Church/' "the 
Episcopal Church/' "the American Church/' 
"the Catholic Church," etc., — names used in 
common parlance even to-day — the Church, as a 
body, in General Convention and in Diocesan 
Conventions, substituted for the legal and official 
title, Church of England, the legal and official 
title, "The Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
United States of America." 



56 

Bishop White wrote that "a new name does 
not characterize the Church as new, but may arise 
from civil changes, in various ways to be con- 
ceived of. What was called formerly the Church 
of England in America did not cease to exist on 
the removal of the episcopacy of the Bishop of 
London by the providence of God, but assumed 
a new name as the dictate of propriety/'* By 
the phrase new name Bishop White undoubtedly 
meant its use as the formal title as distinguished 
from that of the Church of England, and not a 
term coined or invented for the occasion; for 
proofs are at hand that the name Protestant 
Episcopal, embodying the two patent charteristics 
of the Church — viz., her Protestantism and her 
Episcopacy — and being a natural combination of 
terms, was used as the informal or popular 
synonyme of the Church of England. Arch- 
bishop Seeker, writing, in 1759, of the diffi- 
culties under which the Church in the colonies 
labored, used the name, and at the same time 
unconsciously, perhaps, explained it in the sen- 
tences: "The churches abroad of the Episcopal 

* White. Memoirs, &c, p. in. 



57 

communion have been under the necessity of 
submitting to these difficulties,, for as Protestants* 
they cannot apply to Popish bishops for confirma- 
tion or orders, and as Episcopal churches they 
.could resort for orders only to English or Irish 
bishops. But since the Moravians have been 
recognized by Parliament to be a Protestant 
Episcopal Church, and have liberty to settle in 
his Majesty's American Dominions, should the 
churches abroad admit of ordination by Moravian 
bishops, it may be attended by consequences not 
easily foreseen, but easily prevented by suffering 
the Episcopal churches of England in America 
to have one or more suffragan bishops residing 
among them/ 9 * The inferences from these words 
of the prelate, who was most active in the move- 
ment for an American episcopate, are that the 
members of the Church of England considered 
themselves as Protestant Episcopalians, and that 
the rulers of the Church were most desirous of 
promoting her special interests and retaining her 
membership in America. 

* N. Y. Hist. Coll. Vol. VIL p. 365. 



58 

That the term was not an unusual one is 
-proven by its use by Alsop in 1666,, quoted in 
the preceding chapter, and the petition of the 
Massachusetts representatives in 1768, wherein 
were set forth the supposed injustice of "the 
establishment of a Protestant episcopate in 
America " among the people whose fathers fled 
from such an establishment." * The Eev. George 
Berkeley, of Oxford, Eng., asked, in 1782, 
" whether this be not a time peculiarly favorable 
to the introduction of the Protestant episcopate " 
into America; for, he continued, "as to Ameri- 
can Protestant episcopacy (for Popish prelacy 
hath found its way into the transatlantic world) 
one sees not anything complicated or difficult in 
the mere planting it." Turning, as did Seabury, 
to the Episcopal Church of Scotland, he asked 
if any one could be found "who would convey 
the great blessing of the Protestant episcopate 
from the persecuted Church of Scotland to the 
struggling, persecuted Protestant Episcopalian 
worshippers in America," and thought it was the 
duty of the Scottish bishops "to contribute 

* Coll. Prot. Epis. Hist. Soc. Vol. I, p. 156. 



59 

towards sending into the New World Protestant 
bishops." "Provincial assemblies/' he con- 
tended, writing a year later, "will not now or 
soon think of excluding a Protestant bishop who 
sues for toleration. Popish prelates are now in 
North America exercising their functions over a 
willing people without any aid or encouragement 
from provincial assemblies. In a short time we 
must expect all Protestant Episcopalian principles 
to be lost." Referring to Seabury's arrival in 
England, he expressed to Bishop Skinner, of 
Scotland, the belief "that the king, some of his 
cabinet counsellers, all our bishops, except, per- 
haps, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and all the learned 
and respectable clergy in our Church, will, at 
least, secretly rejoice if a Protestant bishop be 
sent from Scotland to America/' and thought 
that " the glory of communicating a Protestant 
episcopacy to the united and independent States 
of America seems reserved for the Scotch 
hishops;" and Bishop Kilgour, the Primus, 
expressed "his hearty concurrence in the pro- 
posal for introducing Protestant episcopacy into 



60 

America."* Granville Sharp, Esq., another 
Englishman interested in the extension of the 
Church of England, wrote, in 1785, to the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, that "America is not the 
only part wherein Protestant episcopacy is likely 
to be extended when the rights of election are 
better understood; for had I been prepared in 
the year 1767 on this point as I am at present, I 
haye reason to believe that a Protestant Episcopal 
Church would have been planted in Holland and 
in several parts of Germany and Switzerland 
before this time/"f 

But the most convincing proof that the name 
was well known and recognized is the ease with 
which it was adopted as the legal title of the 
Church in the United States. In many States it 
was adopted almost simultaneously, and there 
is nothing in the Journals of the General or 
Diocesan Conventions, in the writings of the 
leaders in the organization of the Church, or 
in those of the English archbishops and bishops, 
which can lead one to think that the title was 

* Ch. Doc. Conn. Vol. II, pp. 235-239. 
t White. Memoirs, &c., p. 371. 



61 

believed to be irregular, noyel or objectionable. * 
The title chosen may be considered as an 
aggressive one in itself, and nothing less could 
have been expected from the Conventions, "the 
lay part consisting principally of gentlemen who 
had been active in the late revolution/' and 
the clergy numbering among themselves such 
men as White, who had boldly espoused the 
cause of America and had ministered as chaplain 
to the Continental Congress, or as Provoost, who 
preferred to retire from his New York pulpit 
rather than by his silence to countenance appar- 

*Beardsley, in his " Life and Correspondence of Samuel Seabury," 
p 369, states that " the title, Protestant Episcopal Churchy was distaste- 
ful to some of the Connecticut clergy," and quotes, in substantiation of this 
statement, a letter written, in 1786, to Rev. A. Beach by Rev. Jeremiah 
Learning, in which the latter speaks of " the style they have given to 
the Church, which is this, the Protestant Episcopal Church The 
Church of England is not called a Protestant Church, but a Reformed 
Church ; they never entered any protest against the civil powers ; they 
reformed as a nation ; it never had the title of Protestant given to it by 
any sensible writer, unless he was a Scotchman.'* (p. 370). Rev. Mr. 
Learning, if he had read history, had not read it aright, for his state- 
ment, like some which have been made in later days, seems to have 
been born of his inner consciousness. Beardsley, also, quotes an 
equally strong argument from a letter of Rev. Dr. Jarvis, written twenty 
years later — some years after the reverend gentleman had signed the Con- 
stitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church— in which he expressed 
the wish' that ** the constitution and canons might be headed * by the 
words' of the reformed, instead of the Protestant Episcopal Church" 
as he was *' confident such a head would be more consistent with 
correct notions of the Church " (p. 371). It will be remembered that 
those two clergymen represented about one- tenth of the clergy of Con- 
necticut, and a much smaller proportion of the clergy in the United 
States. 



62 

ently the attacks upon American liberty.* The 
first use of the term after the declaration of 
independence seems to have been by the clergy 
of Pennsylvania. On May 20, 1778, the "case 
of the Protestant Episcopal missionaries of Penn- 
sylvania" was laid before the State authorities, 
in which was set forth the deplorable condition 
of the "Protestant Episcopal missionaries/' due 
to the war with England, whereby they were cut 
off from "their ecclesiastical superiors at home." 
The plea was signed by the Kev. Thomas Barton, 
on behalf of himself and the other "Protestant 
Episcopal missionaries."! Two years later the 
Convention of Maryland clergy adopted the 
title, and it was frequently used in that State 
before the General Convention was organized, 
and in August, 1783, was published "a declara- 
tion of certain fundamental rights and liberties 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland," 
in which the term appearing in the title was 
employed several times ; and in 1784 the Mary- 
land Legislature by enactment recognized four 

* White. Memoirs, p. in. 

t Doc. Col. Ch, Hist. Pa., p. 491. 



63 

clergymen as "a committee appointed in behalf 
of the clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
in this State (formerly denominated the Church 
of England)."* 

In various parts of the country at that time 
movements were started tending towards a union 
of the churches in all the States. In May, 1784, 
a meeting was held in New Brunswick, N. J., for 
the purpose of reviving a charitable organization 
that had existed previous to the war with Eng- 
land. The members of that meeting, learning 
that the clergy of Pennsylvania had discussed a 
plan for reorganizing the Church, fell in with the 
spirit of the undertaking, and adjourned until 
the following October, when the meeting at New 
York was attended by clergymen from Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. 
The New York meeting adopted certain propo- 
sals, which were sent to the Episcopal churches 
in the United States, for "a General Convention 
of the Episcopal Church in the United States of 
America." f 

* White. Memoirs, &c., p, 103 ; Green, Laws of Md M 1784. 
t White. Memoirs, &c M p, 87. 



64 

In the propositions of the New York meeting 
the Church was called Episcopal. The printed 
xecord of its proceedings was entitled a "Journal 
of a Convention of Clergymen and Lay Deputies 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United 
States of America/' The proceedings are thus 
quoted in a "Journal of the Meetings which Led 
to the Institution of a Convention of the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church" in Pennsylvania,, and 
an old broadside is preserved, probably a copy of 
the notice sent to the churches in several of the 
States, in which the same title is employed.* 

What may be considered the first General Con- 
vention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
the United States of America met at Philadelphia 
in September, 1785, and several months before 
that time the churches in all the seven States, 
except Delaware, which were represented in the 
Convention had adopted the title " Protestant 
Episcopal" — Maryland in November, 1780; 
Pennsylvania in May, 1785 ; Virginia in May, 
New York in June, South Carolina and New 
Jersey in July of the same year. In October, 

* Pa. Dioc. Con. Jour., p. 8. Fac simile doc, No. 27. 



65 

1784, the Virginia Assembly passed "an act for 
incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church" 
in that State (repealed 1786), and the first Con- 
vention issued an address "to the members of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church of Virginia," and 
quoted the first recommendation of the New York 
Convention as "that there shall be a General 
Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church." 
The vestries of St. Philip's and St. Michael's 
churches, Charleston, S. C, prepared February 
8, 1785, an address to the " Protestant Episcopal 
Church" in that State, which resulted in the 
first diocesan Convention. The Pennsylvania 
Convention of 1785 adopted as a preamble : 
"Whereas by the late revolution the Protestant 
Episcopal Church in the United States of Amer- 
ica is become independent of the ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction of England," and as one of a number 
of resolutions, that the title should be "the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania;" and the New Jersey Convention referred 
to "a General Convention of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church" to be held.* The Journals 

* Journals of Diocesan Conventions. Dashiell, Digest, etc., pp. 29-31; 
iHenning, Statutes (Va.), Vol. XI, p. 532; Dalcho, Church of South Caro- 
1 lina, pp. 463-466. 



of the first Convention of the Church in Delaware 
are not, it is believed, in existence, unless in 
manuscript, and therefore nothing is known of 
the name adopted. None of the New England 
churches were represented in the General Con- 
vention of 1785 ; they seeming to disapprove of a 
plan of reorganizing the Church before the com- 
plete episcopate had been secured, there being but 
one Bishop, Seabury, in America. 

The title page of the printed copy of the pro- 
ceedings of the first General Convention is in- 
scribed, "Journal of a Convention of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the States of 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina." "The 
resolutions of a Convention of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church" held in New York in October, 
1784, were recalled, a committee was appointed 
to draw up an "ecclesiastical constitution for the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States 
of America," and also a committee to make 
"alterations of the liturgy of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church in the United States of 
America, in order to render the same conform- 



67 

able to the American revolution and the consti- 
tutions of the respective States." * The 
constitution, in which the title appears several 
times, was approved of by the Convention, and 
an address was sent to the Archbishops of Canter- 
bury and York and the bishops of England re- 
garding the episcopate. In the Journals of 
subsequent Conventions, and in the correspond- 
ence with the English prelates and with Presi- 
dent George Washington, the title "Protestant 
Episcopal" was used almost uniformly ; and the 
Rev. Dr. William White, who had been so active 
in furthering the interests of the Church, was 
consecrated a bishop of "the Protestant Episcopal 
Church" at Lambeth, February 4, 1787, together 
with the Rev. Dr. Samuel Provoost, of New 
York. The consecration papers of Bishop Pro- 
voost, or copies of them, were not accessible to 
the author of this pamphlet, but he and Bishop 
White called themselves bishops of "the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church" in later documents. 

Bishop White, moreover, in his letters from 
England, used the terms "the Church," "the 

* Fac simile reprint of Journal, pp. 5, 6, 8, 9, 12. 



68 

American Church," "the Episcopal Church// 
etc., but invariably wrote at the end : "To the 
Committee of the Protestant Episcopal Church."* 
He entitled his chief work : "Memoirs of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church/'' and dedicated it 
to the bishops of that Church ; wrote " Lectures 
on the Catechism of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church," and, in a letter, under date of De- 
cember 1, 1785, to Mr. Charles Miller, of 
Boston, he wrote : " Of all the members of the 
Protestant body, the Church of England has 
been the strongest bulwark against her [the 
Church of Rome], from the circumstances of 
retaining more than others of those ancient in- 
stitutions which were prior to her corruptions. 
I cannot bear the thought of our communion's 
losing in the New World what has been our 
glory in the Old/" f Such were Bishop White's 
views on the Protestantism of the Church, and 
no one can doubt the soundness of his opinions 
as to episcopacy, or believe that his plan, set 
forth, in "The Case of the Episcopal Churches 

* White. Memoirs, &c, pp. 145, 147, 154, 348, 353, 358, 382, 398. 
t Wilson. Memoir of Bishop White, pp. 305, 306, 327. 



69 

In the United States Considered," was intended 
to be anything but temporary. 

The same causes which made prominent in 
colonial New England the term Episcopal as 
applied to the Church doubtless operated towards 
the retention of the term after the revolution. 
The Eev. Dr. Samuel Seabury was consecrated 
to the episcopate November 14, 1874, by the non- 
juring bishops of Scotland, one of whom, Bishop 
Kilgour, the Primus, it will be remembered, had 
shortly before that time heartily concurred in the 
proposition of introducing Ci Protestant episco- 
pacy into America," and in the Concordat be- 
tween the Scottish bishops and Bishop Seabury, 
signed November 15, 1874, they agreed that "the 
Episcopal Church in Connecticut is to be in full 
communion with the Episcopal Church in Scot- 
land," which is also called "the Catholic re- 
mainder of the ancient Church of Scotland.* 
Thus the Church in Connecticut was recognized 
as Catholic, Episcopal and Protestant, and as 
such was in a position to unite with the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church, her fellow-survivor in 

* Facsimile Doc, Nos. u. 13. 



70 

America of the Catholic, Episcopal and Prot- 
estant Church of England. 

Before the General Convention of July- August. 
1789, was laid a communication from the clergy 
of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, who pro- 
claimed themselves members of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, asking that Bishops White, 
Provoost and Seabury would unite in consecrating 
the Rev. Edward Bass as bishop. The result of 
the request was, what from later actions appears 
to have been designed, a formal vote in favor of 
the validity of Bishop Seabury' s consecration and 
the adoption of a resolution "that a complete 
order of bishops, derived as well under the Eng- 
lish as the Scots line of episcopacy, doth now sub- 
sist within the United States of America in the 
persons of the Rt. Rev. William White, D. D., 
bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
State of Pennsylvania; the Rt. Rev. Samuel Pro- 
voost, D. D., bishop of the said Church in the 
State of New York, and the Rt. Rev. Samuel 
Seabury, D. D., bishop in the said Church in the 
State of Connecticut."* At the adjourned meet- 

* Journal, July-August, 1789, pp. 8, 10, 53. 



71 

Ing in September and October of the same year 
"the Et. Rev. Dr. Samuel Seabury, bishop of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in Connecticut, 
attended/' with other New England clergy, and 
having effected an amendment to the constitution 
providing for two houses of Convention, but with- 
out attempting to have the title altered, subscribed 
a minute that "we do hereby agree to the consti- 
tution of the Church, as modified this day in 
Convention/'* and formally signed in the record 
book, " The Constitution of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church in the United States of America." 

* Half statements are calculated to deceive. Perry, in his " Hand- 
book," p. 75, referring to this minute, wrote that "a single sheet of fools- 
cap preserved among the archives of the Church, which we give below, is 
the record of the formal union of the separated churches in the land." 
The minute was not the record of the union, which is to be found in 
the signatures of the bishops and clerical deputies from New England 
to the constitution. For the convenience of those who have nothing 
but the ,4 Handbook" to rely upon, the following sentences have been 
transciibed from the Journal of the Convention of Sept. -Oct., 1789. pp. 7, 
8,10: 4t Ordered, that the General Constitution of this Church, as now 
altered and amended, be laid before the Right Rev. Dr. Seabury and 
the deputies from the churches in the Eastern States for their approba- 
tion and assent." 

After a short time they delivered the following testimony of tkeir 
assent to the same, viz : M October 2nd, 1789. 

41 We do hereby agree to the Constitution of the Church as modified 
this day in Convention." [This was signed by Bishop Seabury, Revs. 
A. Jarvis, Bela Hubbard and Sam'l Parker.] 44 After subscribing as 
above they took their seats as members of the Convention." 

The words 4k subscribing as above" evidently mean signing the Con- 
stitution, in accordance with their assent, for the Constitution adopted on 
the same day is closed with the words : 44 Ordered to be transcribed into 
the Book of Records and subscribed, which was done as follows, viz.," 
and the first signature is that of Bishop Seabury, while the three other 
New Englanders also signed. 



72 

The two houses then adopted, after some days' 
labors, the Book of Common Prayer, its title 
page and form of ratification. The book was 
based upon the English Prayer-book, as had 
been the proposed book of 1786, prepared by the 
Committee on the "Alteration in the Liturgy of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church/' etc., and use 
was made of the latter in the new book.* In 
the editio princeps of the book, printed in 1790, 
the title page bears the words " Protestant Epis- 
copal Church." The title was copyrighted, and 
the form of ratification adopted in 1789 is as 
follows: "The ratification of the Book of 
Common Prayer by the bishops, the clergy and 
the laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
the United States of America, in Convention, 
this 16th day of October, in the year of our 
Lord 1789. This Convention having in their 
present session set forth 'A Book of Common 
Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments 
and Other Eites and Ceremonies of the Church/ 
do hereby establish the said book ; and they 
declare it to be the Liturgy of this Church, and 

* Journal, Sept.-Oct., 1789. 



73 

require that it be received as such by all members 
of the same."* That by "this Church" was 
meant the Protestant Episcopal Church is con- 
cluded from the fact that the book was reviewed 
in 1792, certain changes were made, but the 
title page and the title in the ratification were 
left intact, and the title " Protestant Episcopal 
Church " was left in the Constitution and Canons. 
The Convocation of Connecticut adopted the 
constitution of the General Convention in 1789, 
and the first diocesan Convention adopted the 
title in 1790, as did also that of Massachusetts 
in 1791, having used the title the preceding year. 
At the meeting of the General Convention in 
1792 deputies from Rhode Island signed the con- 
stitution, a communication was received from 
the clergy and laity of North Carolina expressing 
their willingness to accede to the constitution,! 
and in the consecration of the Rev. Dr. Thomas 
John Claggett to be "Bishop of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church " in Maryland, by Bishops 
Provoost, White, Seabury and Madison, the two 

* See Book of Common Prayer. 

■f Journals of Dioc. Conventions; Journal Gen. Con., 1792, pp. 8, n. 



74 

lines of the episcopate were united and the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church in the United States of 
America fully organized and universally recog- 
nized by its members. The title,, which had its 
basis in the character of the Church of England, 
in the use in colonial days of its parts as synomy- 
nies of the title of the Church and in its official 
employment for seven years, remains this 
day as distinctive and definite as ever, and while 
its members may call it, The Church, as being a 
part of the Church of Christ on earth, the same 
circumstances, which led to the adoption of its 
distinguishing title, still exist and are likely to 
remain for many years. 



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